ATTENTION GUYS! Tokyo Game Show!!
OK, the pictures don't really tell a story so I'll just throw them all at the end. But basically I went to the Tokyo Game Show today. Was really far away, in Chiba prefecture, about 1.5 hours away. So I left around 9:10, got there (including 4 trains and some insane queues) about 12:00pm.
It was crazy, and awesome, and strange at the same time. It was held in a huge convention centre in 3 massive halls (Makuhari Messe). Sony, Sega, Capcom, Koei, SqureEnix, KDDI (japanese phone company), Microsoft under the X360, Cykan, and a lot of other companies were flaunting a lot of stuff. But because its Japan, it was a little bit weird. There's a lot of stuff advertised that I didn't understand, and a lot of seemingly old generation type game stuff. But anyway, it was tons of fun. There were lines for the PS3 stuff, so I did line up two times. The first time, I lined up without knowing what game I was going to play because there was a whole row of PS3s showing off different games from Virtua Fighter 5 to some golf game to mahjong! Anyway, I played this weird, simple, not so exciting game called flOw (which is like a really really nice graphically enhanced "Snake" game). The graphics were good, everything HD. Then I lined up for another game called Resistance: Fall of Man, which is an FPS of a futuristic war between aliens and men. This was a great game, except I can't play FPSs on consoles, joysticks SUCK! I played for a while, managed to finish the level, and then had to leave (only 10 minutes!!).
Anyway, stand out games for those that are interested: Lost Planet (X360), Gran Turismo HD (PS3) (this game was gorgeous!), Virtua Tennis 3 (Ps3/X360), Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3), Lair (PS3), and Genji (PS3). Getting to see so many CG movies was a real treat for me; I absolutely love that stuff.
BUT! Let's get to the important stuff, hahaha! The women. Are. Unbelievable. They wore unbelievable clothing, and had unbelievable figures. I'm not gonna say anymore, just have a look at the photos. And also of the rest of the event, hahaha.
Song that's touched my heart
At the Cross - Hillsong (Mighty to Save)
At the cross I bow my knee
Where your blood was shed for me
There's no greater love than this
You have overcome the grave
Glory fills the highest place
What can separate me now?
Those are the chorus words, and the first time I listened to them, they just touched my heart in a strange way I've never really felt before. I just straight away knew: this is a powerful song. Do yourself a favour and listen to it, possibly even if you don't happen to believe in God :).
Anyway, hilarious story today. I was talking with a student about "Asking for Assistance." I won't give the actual conversation because it wasn't that funny, but the general situations in this lesson are supposed to be one person asking their friend for help, eg. look after the kids, water the plants, pick me up from the station, etc.
This student I had is a very fun student, and so she came up with, "Could you help me...my house, fire...could you help me...stop fire?"
I couldn't respond because it was so outrageous, and I couldn't stop laughing for about 10 seconds! Completely rendered incapable fo teaching...
Kids are CUTE!
My camera sucks! I couldn't zoom in close enough, nor did I realise that I had the flash turned off until halfway through the festival. But that's only the half of it (the second half). Let me start right at the beginning.
There was a sports festival for the kindergarten kids that I teach english to on Monday mornings. The festival was on Saturday, starting at 9:30...pretty darn early. So I woke up, got ready, got to the kindergarten at 9:2oam. NO-ONE THERE. Now I was expecting that they would be leaving from there so I could follow some people to the place where they'd hold the festival. But no-one, and I didn't know where the festival was being held. On top of that, there was no-one in the office, and no-one's number that I could call. How stupid of me. Anyway, I literally RAN around Toritsu-daigaku (the station place/area) for 30 minutes straight, looking for an outdoor park hoping I would spot some kids that I recognised. No luck, and I was sweating like a ... I dunno. I decided to go back to the kindergarten and ask around the area if anyone knew of a sports festival. Though I wasn't expecting much luck with my limited Japanese. Basically, I was at my wits' end. I got to the kindergarten, and lo and behold, I saw some Japanese guy walking into the entrance. I quickly ran to him and asked him about the sports festival. He told me in broken english that he'd take me there. HHHHOOOOORRAAAAYY!!! After all that trouble (I also had to sort out work at Nova too for this), I had finally found my way to this place.
Turns out, it was indoor, in a gigantic hall. And it was very different from what I expected. There were TONS of kids, more than at the kindergarten I work at. I later found out that there was our kinder (Mami), and another one under the same company (Mama), which handled the 1-2 yr olds. So anyway, it was like a huge performance thing, not really races and stuff like that. I can't really show you everything, but it was so funny seeing some of the 1-2 yr olds run some obstacle course. Some were really eager; some had to be carried by parents through the obstacle course coz they were scared. But it was great seeing all the kids I taught (3,4,5yr olds) having fun and dressing up in...weird stuff.
Here are the 3 year olds:
Mikoto-kun is the one with the pink hat on, and eating his hand. The cutest kid in the world is the one in that same picture, count two left from Mikoto. That's Ha-chan, or Haruka-chan. She's one of the most energetic kids that I've ever taught. And cute and crazy! Miko-kun is mega smart; even at 3 years he can remember country names and lots of other silly vocab we teach.
There's a really cute kid in the 4yr old class as well, and some in the 5. These are just the pictures mingled...coz I can't be bothered, but you can get an idea of what the place looked like.
I had a great time. It was lots of fun watching the kids; pity my camera skills weren't up to it on the day to show you properly how it went.
P.S. The past few days have been a laugh. I've had some really funny student stories, but the funniest was when I was teaching Negotiation.
I said to the student, "OK, you're going to sell me a packaged tour."
She said, "OK. ....The tour will cost you...300,oooY."
I say, "Hmm...is there anyway you can give me a discount?"
She said, "No, never!" "Oh oh oh, sorry...I mean..." by which time I was laughing so loudly at her first response! The funny stories come so thick and fast, it's hard to remember them to tell y0u.
P.P.S. One of our regular staff members (Japanese) just moved to another branch :(. But we also got a replacement staff, who is in one word, hot.
